THE IMPORTANCE OF US CELEBRATING MOTHERS DAY
In countries including Australia and the United States, Mothers Day of 2025 was on Sunday May the 11th. As this happened at the time of me writing this blog, it’s a very important topic for me to discuss.
The purpose of Mothers Day is for us to celebrate and show appreciation for all of the things our mums do for us. This also applies to any other person who is the motherly figure in our life.
In the case of our own mum, she’s definitely had a fair bit of work that she’s had to do in her life, when it came to looking after us all. That work didn’t cease or even lessen as my siblings and I grew into adulthood either. Once we are adults, it could very well be said that we become even harder to manage or raise! When each of us go our own ways (and follow our own life path) it’s no longer a straightforward situation. In addition to this, me and my four younger siblings all have significant cognitive impairments. So despite the fact that we are chronologically adults, we’re not independent.
The story of Mothers Day for me did of course began when I was a child. As young children we didn’t earn an income. Thus, my Mothers Day presents and cards (to give to mum) were always made whilst I was at school. As a result of that, those gifts in truth looked more like “kiddy” collages and “messy” felt-pen drawings. I could also say that this was a reason for why I often dismissed Mothers Day as being a mere public holiday.
However, in adulthood me and my siblings have a little bit more money than we did as children. So now we’re able to each buy mum a card and a gift, that is worth the same amount of money as a birthday present. This enables me to acknowledge Mothers Day as being a very important day, and to view the celebration as being much more like a family birthday. In addition to gift-giving we usually have a special family dinner as well.
Unfortunately, I do have to admit that as a young child (in primary school) there were some years when I didn’t give mum anything for Mothers Day. One of the reasons for that was mentioned a couple of paragraphs earlier. Another was caused by me having psychological issues about how I didn’t have a kind dad (at the time) to celebrate Fathers Day with.
Those two reasons are fairly easy for me to now justify. Yet I feel that the main reason overall (for a lack of gifts on certain years) was that I plainly and simply took my mum for granted. In other words I wasn’t appreciative and thankful for all of her sacrifices, love and work that she did for me.
Nowadays I have finally acknowledged how she would provide me with three meals a day, gave me a loving home to live in, drove me to places without asking for transport money, bought me nice new clothes, and she even made sure that I would always get lots of presents to open on my birthday and Christmas. All of that was even done by her having little money or time of her own, given that she was a single parent without any other family members to help her out.
Perhaps time has taught me that I must never take supportive people in my life for granted. It takes a lot of energy and self-sacrifice to care for someone (be it a child, another family member or a friend). As a child, I would frequently allow those valuable words of advice wash over me; though after the passage of time I myself have become one of “those preachers” who I would not listen to in my earliest years.